Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Long
Form: The
tens of millions
Americans who have been
working hard but getting nowhere have come to understand that the
system is rigged against them, and
they want it to change.
They are being given a choice between “an authoritarian
son-of-a-bitch who promises to make America great again by keeping
out people different from you” and “a political activist who
tells it like it is, who has lived by his convictions for fifty
years, who won’t take a dime of money from big corporations or Wall
Street or the very rich, and who is leading a grass-roots “political
revolution” to regain control over our democracy and economy.”
It will be an
interesting contest, unless Hillary
ends
up giving us more of the same.

Smokescreens:
The six
largest Too Big To Exist US banks operate 19 traditional banks and
hide the rest of their control of the US and its economy thorough
14,001 subsidiaries.

Totally
Profitable Partnership:
The biggest thing that the TPP will trade is jobs. It will simply
trade them away. Studies of the plan say that not only would it
result in the loss of
tens of thousands of
jobs in the US and Canada, but a net loss of jobs throughout the
twelve co-conspirators. It would also shrink both the US and
Japanese economies.

The
Home Team:
Republican Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense, says that the
Republican presidential candidates have a grasp of national security
issues that “would
embarrass a middle schooler.”

The
Easy Button:
Savants keep trying to figure out why US corporations are sitting on
so much cash when, for a hundred years and more they were net
borrowers. They borrowed to expand, they borrowed to develop new
products, they borrowed to acquire other companies. They didn't pile
up $1.9 trillion while borrowing money to buy back their own stock.
So what's going on? Pretty much it is the simple fear of failure –
they can't find customers for what they have, they can't find new
things that anyone would have the money to buy, they already own most
of the competition and they simply can't find anything useful to do
with the money except hunker down and hope they survive whatever
disaster is knocking at the door.

The
Essence: Danny
DeVito says we are a nation of racists. Danny is right. Our economic
system is based on racism. Our political system is based on racism.
Our social system is
based on racism. Our laws and our justice system is based on racism.
Never mind what we say,
look at what we do.

Nutshelled:
What, beside the obvious, should be drawn from the endorsements
Sanders gets from the membership of groups whose leaders continue to
bow to Hillary?

Munchies:
Rather like
our dogs, we are designed to eat whenever we get the chance. No, our
bodies don't know if we're hungry – or at least don't care. We'll
eat. And even when we are vaguely dieting we don't judge very well
how much we've eaten. Want to do a bit better? Then write it down.
Write it down before you eat it. And try to eat better tasting stuff
slowly enough to
appreciate it.

Practiced,
Not Perfected:
US Secretary of Defense Carter says that “We have 3,500 boots on
the ground’ in Iraq and ‘we’re looking for opportunities to do
more.” Doing more would include deploying more troops to Iraq. And
there's always Syria.

Hard to say which chestnut to put forth on that one, 'consider the source' or the equally damnable 'have you spoken to a kid lately?'

Sort of rhetorical question really, considering the apple really doesn't fall too far from the tree so what can one expect?

Since the current crop of youngsters have been raised in a virtual vacuumn, it's unsurprising their 'grip on reality' is tenuous at best.

My own kid come out with stuff that stops me cold (because it's so outlandish) and you have to wonder 'what are they embedding in those video games?'

Which, in and of themselves are a cause to worry.

The question we need to ask is how many of our young think they can 're-spawn' after they suffer a fatal encounter?

Worse is the lack of sensitivity these first person shooters instills in the players, regardless of age. Nobody 'really' dies but when they put their uniforms and badges on, that changes.

Is this the 'grip' Mr. Gates is referring to?

Last night I was struck by the 'unreality' of it all when a printer I bought for $40 ran out of toner. I made the mental decision, same one I made when I bought the unit, that if I can buy a new printer for less than the cost of replacing the cartridge, guess what I'm doing?

Also got a b-slap this morning from what passes for our legal system. I had arranged to have an interview with an employer tomorrow but they wanted an application filled out first.

Reading along (a very handy skill) I encountered the usual 'privacy policy' (and we all know nothing's 'private') but next came the 'arbitration waiver' where you agree to have any and all disputes decided by an arbitrator (theirs to be specific) and I clicked on 'I do NOT agree' and it dumped me, saying I wasn't qualified to be an employee.

Well a Merry Christmas to them too!

I was solicited to be a sales rep for this company, you know, the guy that gets you to sign contracts? and THIS is how they deal with their own people?

Prospecting in our 'vacated' society is tough enough but once word gets out that your contract includes a binding arbitration clause, who in their right mind is going to sign? I know I wouldn't.

So companies sitting on billions while borrowing to buy their own stock back...sounds 'right to size' to me...perfectly understandable! [but for how long?]

RE "The Home Team": Mr. Gates is correct but the same criticism could've been focused on George the younger and no one in the Republican establishment cared about that detail. So my cynical take on this is that Mr. Gates doesn't really care that they are ill-informed but he DOES care that the current crop of angry white men don't seem to play well with people like him - the established players who expect to call the shots.

The Easy Button: Increase the corporate tax rate, and investment in research and development would increase.

Low corporate tax rates create a disincentive to invest in research and development. For example, in a low corporate tax environment the tax deduction gained from investment is less than the tax deduction gained under a high corporate tax regime.

If you had to choose between a low corporate tax rate and a high corporate tax rate, a high corporate tax rate would encourage increased expenditures on research and development.

Think about it, would you invest in that new technology if you only received a 30% tax write off, or a 60% tax write off? Higher corporate tax rates would increase capital expenditures and increase overall growth.

Low corporate tax rates do not increase investment. It does the opposite, and we only need to look in the mirror to see that this is correct.

Supply side economics is a scam, and those of us that should know better are still trapped within its web.

It is truly sad that something as basic and simple as tax policy is so hard to defend; even among friends.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.